


capiche?

by thilesluna



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Barry is a good dude, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Lup is confused as to why she likes him so much, Temporary Character Death, and honestly kind of mad about it probably, as is the ipre way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 11:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12232014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thilesluna/pseuds/thilesluna
Summary: Barry knows that they don't die for real so he takes a lot of risks but damn is he bad at math.





	capiche?

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a text post on tumblr that i don't know how to link bc I'm old and bad but here's the link if you wanna copy and paste
> 
> https://mcgonagollygee.tumblr.com/post/165908562652/we-know-how-many-times-the-thb-died-during-the

The first time Barry dies, its on cycle seven and it’s quick. He’s alive one minute and the next he’s waking up on the Starblaster, surrounded by the rest of the team and in his ‘reset spot’ as they’ve come to call them. He remembers of course, what kills him—it was a stupid thing, but there was a collapse and the people on this plane already had so little. He couldn’t stop himself from going into the unstable building. The good news is that he got at least two of the small, humanoid beings out before the whole thing came crumbling down. The bad news was, well, the whole _dying_ thing.

Magnus claps him on the back as they leave the deck of the ship and Davenport gives him a nod of welcome. Merle waddles past with a _Good to see ya again, buddy_ and Lucretia smiles and waves. The twins both brush past him, Taako rolling his eyes and Lup snickering behind her hand. Barry blushes, just like he _always_ does, how he has since they all first met at The Institute and he realized he’d be spending a few months in close quarters with the most beautiful pair of elves he’d ever seen. Before she steps inside though, Lup looks back and there’s something on her face that reminds him of when there’s a particular puzzle she’s trying to piece together in the lab.

She’s gone a moment later and Barry shakes his head, straightens his robe, and follows them all inside.

\-----

The second time he dies—well, the second time is kind of his own choice. It’s a few cycles later, cycle number thirteen and as hard as they tried, they can’t find the goddamn Light anywhere. This world is so full of life and people that Barry can’t—he can’t imagine just _leaving_ them. He’s spent the year working with the scientists of the city they landed in to track and find the Light and he just can’t say “Well, sucks for you guess you guys are fucked” and leave. He won’t.

Lup finds him in the lab one night, a week before the end of the year. He’s strung out coffee and limited sleep and if he could _just_ get this last bit right, maybe they could find a way to track it and still have enough time to get to it before—

“Barry?”

He’s not proud of the way he jumps and even less enthused about the scalding hot coffee he’d just poured spilling on his hand. Barry swears under his breath, wiping the liquid onto his worn robe and rubbing at his eyes beneath his glasses. He eventually looks up at her and tries his best to offer a smile. “Hey,” he says, voice scratchy and rough. He hasn’t been talking out loud much for the last few days, holing himself away in the lab to try and figure out _something_.

Lup whistles lowly, still leaning against the doorframe. “You look like _shit_ , Barry.” She says it like she’s teasing but there’s something buried underneath her tone that’s different.

Barry can’t help but blush. It’s like some Pavlovian action when she says his goddamn name. It’s been getting a little better as the years go on, but he’s still—he’s got a crush and it’s stupid and pathetic. “Yeah, well, we can’t all be ethereal beauties like you, Lup.” It comes out before he can even think—hell, maybe it’s not even that he didn’t have time, maybe it’s just that his brain is fucking _broken_ at this point.

To his great relief, she laughs. “Good one, Bluejeans,” she says, wandering into the room and sitting down on the stool next to his at the lab counter. “How long you been in here?”

 _21 hours and 34 minutes_ , he thinks to himself.

“A while,” is what he says instead.

Lup frowns at that, like she knows he’s lying. _Maybe she learned Zone of Truth from Merle_ , Barry thinks wildly before remembering that’s not really how the spell works. “When’s the last time you ate?” she asks, snapping him out of his thoughts.

This he has to think about. He’s been snacking, sure, but he’s pretty sure she’s asking about a _real_ meal. “Uh, lunch?” he says which is definitely a lie and she definitely knows it.

“Bullshit, my dude,” she says, poking him directly on the forehead. His eyes cross as he follows her finger. “You’re killing yourself over this, Barry. What gives?”

The question of the year, honestly. The question of thirteen years, really. Why are they stuck doing this? Why are they the ones who get to leave and watch the destruction over and over? Why are they the only ones left from their plane? Why do they have to keep being surrounded by so much death?

“I don’t know,” is what he says instead. God, he sounds so tired.

“Barry—“

He takes off his glasses and sets them on the table. “Lup, please—I don’t—I just really don’t know. I don’t know _anything_. I’m so used to being able to figure out stuff and help people and I can’t do that here.” He falters for a second but keeps going, almost like the exhaustion has blanketed his filter and it’s all pouring out. “I—I can’t help anyone and I can’t do anything because I—I don’t know _enough_ about any of this!” Barry swipes his hand across all his notes and his spilled coffee, sweeping them onto the floor like a child throwing a tantrum. He’s breathing hard and he feels tired down to his very bones.

He looks up, wiping a stray tear—god, now he’s _crying_ —and sees Lup staring at him. “God, I’m—I’m sorry, Lup. That was—it was uncalled for and I didn’t—“

Whatever he was going to say, he doesn’t get to finish as she stand suddenly and pulls him off his stool into a crushing hug. He blinks rapidly, trying to figure out if this is some sort of sleep deprivation-fueled fantasy until she says, “A girls gonna get offended if you don’t hug her back, Bluejeans.”

So he does. He hugs her with what limited strength he has left after the last couple of days and he buries his face in her hair that smells faintly like the flowers that grow on the rolling hills of this plane. He feels, for the first time in months, the weight lift off of him just a little bit and with that, comes more tears that he can’t quite hide. Lup, angel that she is, says nothing about the way his shoulders shake and just hugs him a little tighter until he finally stops.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles when they finally part, looking down at his shoes. “I’m really—I shouldn’t have—I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“Barry,” she says, “Barry look at me.” He’s helpless not to do anything she asks so he wrenches his eyes from the floor to meet hers. “You don’t have to apologize. You don’t—“ she thinks for a moment. “You don’t have to do this on your own and you don’t have to keep all this stuff bottled up. Maybe we’re not the most _functional_ group of people—“ Barry chuckles at that, and she smiles, “—but we’re in this _together_ , right? We have to stick together on this. It’s the only way we’re going to make it, you get me?”

Barry nods, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I just want to help them,” he says, waving his hand in the direction of the window. “I’m tired of losing so much every time.”

Lup searches his face and he feels like one of his own samples beneath a microscope. There’s a vulnerability hanging in the air between them, like she’s teetering on the edge of something that she wants to say but isn’t sure how if or if she really wants to at all. Barry meets her gaze, already open and laid bare, giving her the opportunity to do the same. Instead, she finally looks away and it seems like a spell has been broken. He feels the weight settle back into his chest and his eyes fall to the scattered note pages stained with coffee on the floor. He bends to pick them up but is stopped by a hand on his arm.

“I don’t think so, Barold,” Lup says, the teasing tone back. “You’re going straight to bed, my man. Humans need sleep and you’re definitely a human and you definitely lied to me earlier about how long it’s been since you hit the hay.”

He wants to argue but there’s really no sense in it and her grip starts to feel like it’s the only think holding him upright, so he nods and she steers them out of the lab and toward the bunks. The very last thing he remembers before falling asleep is careful hands sliding his glasses from his face and a soft pat on his hair.

When The Hunger comes four days later, Barry stays. He runs off the Starblaster while Davenport calls his name and Taako swears at him but he has to do _something_ for this world. He stands and fights along side the people he’s come to know in his year, eventually holing up in the lab and making a last stand. Its not long before he feels the shift start to happen. He stands in the center of the room, watching as the door is blasted open and the shadows pour in. Barry watches the people of this world die while the white strands ravel around him and then begin rebuilding him back on the deck of the Starblaster.

He collapses to his knees, rubbing at the tears that threaten to spill over and he can hear the admonishment die on Davenport’s lips. Magnus is there a moment later, gathering Barry up and hugging him in a way that no one but a Burnsides could. It takes a moment, but Barry finally collects himself enough to push Magnus away and rush inside. He only looks back for a moment, but he doesn’t need even need to to know Lup watches him go.

\------

He dies a lot. Not at much as Merle or even Magnus but Barry thinks, _We’re coming back anyway, right?_ and just kind of goes for it.

He dies recklessly. He dies saving members of his crew and people from the planes that they land on. Once, he dies because of a bet with Taako.

(“It’s _definitely_ poisonous, Barold,” Taako had said. “I bet you a cycle’s worth of kitchen clean up duty that it’s poisonous.” It was and when he woke up, Taako had a pair of yellow rubber gloves waiting for him—Lup had a very hard smack waiting for them both.)

He’s died twelve times by the time the 37th cycle comes around. In the 36th, he’d actually died kind of early, only a few months in. There was a chance the Light had landed in the depths of a very spooky and very feared forest, one that the locals were not particularly interested in going into. Davenport had even declared it too dangerous to venture in without more proof that the Light was actually there. Barry’s not normally one to disobey orders but the forest is the _only_ hunch they have this time around and he decides he’s not going to sit around with his thumb up his ass when he could be doing something.

He leaves early in the morning before the sun has fully risen. He leaves a note explaining what he’s doing and by nightfall, he’s dragging himself into a cave doing his best to put pressure on a wound that’s been bleeding steadily for a couple hours despite the healing potion he’d brought and used. He thinks about his note and how he’s glad he’d put the stipulation that if he hadn’t returned in two days to just look for him the next time they reset and not to worry because at least he’d be coming back.

Barry breathes in deep when the strands from the bond engine pull him back together. It’s weird how it works, honestly. He knows he’s been dead for a long time—it was the earliest he’d ever died—but it doesn’t feel like it. He’s already spent too many nights thinking about what happens to them in the interim and barely has time to think about it now before he’s being slapped fairly hard.

“Ow!” he says, rubbing at his arm. “What the fuck, Lup?” He looks around and sees that the rest of the crew has already gone inside, probably because Lup is looking at him like he’s Greg Grimaldis.

“Nine!”

He blinks at her, still recovering from the regeneration and the slap. “What?”

“Nine _months_ , Barry!” she says, glaring at him.

Barry runs through the things that take nine months and compares them to the things that involve him. “What? I don’t—“

Lup slaps a hand over his mouth, shutting him up pretty effectively. “You were _gone_. You left us for nine months!”

He tries to talk around her hand but she squeezes his face a little tighter and he gets the message.

“First Merle and then you. We were down to _five_ , Barry,” she hisses. “What the _fuck_ were you thinking?” Now she takes her hand away and looks at him expectantly.

“I was—“ He can’t think of a good enough lie, still reeling from everything that’s happened in the last five minutes. “God, I don’t know, Lup!” Barry runs a hand through his hair and straightens his glasses. “I mean, it was our best lead and I couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ just sit around and do nothing when there was a chance! And we come back, right? We always come back so I figured I’d be fine in the end.”

She stares at him and after a moment, laughs. It’s not her normal laugh, not the one that Barry would pay gold to listen to. It’s a hollow, dead sounding thing and he hates it. “You don’t get it, do you?”

And obviously he doesn’t. Can’t imagine what he could have done to make her sound so defeated like that. “Lup, I don’t—what are you talking about?”

“You’ve died three in a row, Barry. Three times in a row and this last one was only three months in!” She grits her teeth and sighs. “I don’t like that you’re not careful. I don’t like when there are less of us because _someone_ can’t be bothered to give a shit whether or not they die. It’s shitty. For me. Emotionally. You have to stop acting like just because we come back, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t fucking suck every time someone dies.”

She scrunches up her face like she’s tasting something sour in her mouth. “I’m not great at _emotions_. I’m better than Taako but that’s not saying _much_ , Barry, so I’m only gonna say this once. Stop doing stupid shit that gets you killed because I don’t—I miss having you here. With us and specifically, with me. Capiche?”

 _Oh_ , Barry thinks. “Uh, yeah. Capiche.” And, _oh_.

Lup nods like her work here is done, entirely pleased with herself. “Come inside for dinner or else Taako’s gonna kick your ass and I’ll help him.”

“Um, yeah. Okay, just…give me a minute?” he says, brain running a mile a minute. He waves a hand at her as she turns and walks away eyes glued to her back. She stops right in the doorway and turns back to him, and a smile—just a small one but something clips into place inside his head and somewhere deeper too—slips onto her face as she looks at him. It gone as quickly as it came and she disappears inside, leaving Barry with the deck to himself.

“Holy shit,” he says, looking out into the space around the ship. “I did _not_ see that coming.”


End file.
